I haven’t done an App review before but as this one is fairly unique and based around the work of the great Luke Rhinehart @OfficialDiceMan how could I not.

Developed by AppVantage the #DiceLifeApp is your mobile portal to Dice Living. You need never be stuck for a decision again. You can now lead a blameless life, absolved from responsibility, when choosing the evenings activities, which bar to visit, what to eat and even how to entertain a loved one. With a simple shake your life enters a new land of freedom as you give yourself to the dice.

First published in 1971 ‘The Dice Man’ by Luke Rhinehart gained cult status amongst counter culture idealogs and the socially adventurous. Written in an autobiographical style the book relates the progress of psychologist Rhinehart as he gives himself over to chance.

Often referenced, occasionally filmed and still contemporary given our therapy & self-help driven world the book is a great read.

Here’s the press release for the App which hit the iTunes store on Friday.

Dice Life combines entertainment with a radical approach to life – Surrender to the dice as they make your decisions and lead you to new and exciting experiences! (and you’ll have fun on the way).

Inspired by Luke Rhinehart’s internationally bestselling novel THE DICE MAN, the Dice Life app combines entertainment with a radical approach to life.

Break the habits of a lifetime and let Chance be your guide.Some of Dice Life’s features:

Don’t know what to do tonight? Roll the Dice to find local bars, restaurants, theatres, cinemas. Or stay at home and let the Dice choose a recipe, a TV channel, a book or a film.

Want to find someone to hang out with? Dice Life will add six of your Facebook friends to a die and you can involve them in your Dice Life by just rolling to choose.

Don’t know who’s round it is? Take a photo of each of your mates and shake your device – Dice Life will choose for you.

Fancy a random night out with your mates? Follow the Dice as they lead you around any city, and pick from six unique dice-based drinking games.

As your dicing experience grows, the challenges that the Dice throw your way intensify. Who can survive Rhinehart’s Roulette? Or spend an hour as an angry pirate or some other dice-dictated role? Or follow the challenges of the Kama Sutra?

Begin as a Dice Apprentice and work all the way up to Dice Master, unlocking new content as you play.

Your progress through Dice Life is monitored by the elusive Dice Master – he’ll be your guide as you submit to Chance.

Submit your dicelife experiences to be included in Luke’s newest book, THE DICE MAN DIARIES.Great when used alone – even better with a group of friends – Dice Life will transform even the most boring evening into an adventure.

My first reading of the Dice Man was at art school when I had an interest in all things mindful, from Jung & Freud to Laing & Leary. At one point I made a dice matrix for drawing that covered subject, style, colour & media. It was an experiment of passing interest and locked away in a gallery corridor for the almost my entire second year and left to my own devices it formed a part of other strange exercises from left hand drawing, exquisite corpse beasts and blindfold portraiture. They don’t make art schools like that any more.

So, the DiceLifeApp, still a little bit unstable and slow to load but it makes great use of location services and finding links. The initial download is free but you need to buy the full version to unlock the Karma Sutra dice, the drinking games (? Eeekkk!), a FaceBook dice for random stalking, Cuisine Dice (with what look like edible recipes) & PhotoDice (not tried this yet). The Free Text dice allows you to write your own random destiny, this is probably the one that interests me the most so look out for an update once I’ve had a think about it. The Role Play dice gives you the options to conduct your day as a worried politician, manic comedian, close to tears sea captain and sleazy queen. Once in character you can chose what to do – Go out and eat, Stay in & cook, go to a bar etc all in the manner of your character. Dice need imagination but think of the free brain time now you don’t have all those tedious decisions to make.

If you link your app to your Face Book account you can share you rolls with your friends. Just beware of sharing your Karma Sutra results.

I’m going to give this 5 Stars for getting it out there in the first place (hanging an app on a 40 year old book about personal freedoms is quite an achievement) , a small deduction for crashyness which I’m sure will be stabilised soon and pending further investigation a few points for being self-scriptable. If I can work up a set of creative choices for drawing or photography I’ll be quite pleased with it.

2 responses to “Rolling with the Dice Life – App Review”

I know one or two people who really NEED this app.
Eek! Did I really say that? *hides*
Not exactly Mr. Decisive myself either…
Thoroughly entertaining post Mr. 4.
Also, I presume this is why we had furry dice hanging from our rear view mirrors at one time?